5. Serendipity is Not The Word for Us

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5. Serendipity is Not The Word for Us

“Here, April!”

There was a pang inside my stomach when I saw Andrew waiting for me at the parking lot after school. His grin was as big as his mouth could allow and his hand set awkwardly on the trailer of his faded blue truck.

Andrew was a tall, broad-shouledered guy with an extremely blonde buzz cut. Rumors said that he cut his hair so short to hide bleach work went awry, but then I saw that even his roots was super pale. That kind of coloring might look good if he was born female, but alas, he came out with a pair of balls and a dong. Unlike my brother, though, Andrew didn’t like dying his hair and opted for an easier way: be bald at the age of 17.

I immediately knew that I was stepping into a colossal amount of trouble when Andrew tried to reach for my shoulder. Remembering how Ryder warned me about his supposedly contagious skin-disease, I backed away fast.

“Hi,” I forced myself to grin, but really, I couldn’t really grin when I saw the place where I’d be spending the next half an hour or more. The truck looked like it belonged in a museum and looking at the tires, I was pretty sure that at least two of them needed replacing.

“Is that your car?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Andrew starched the back of his head shyly. “My mum wouldn’t let me drive the sedan and gave me this one instead. She said that I’d less likely die when I’m inside this. Dunno, my mum likes to crack jokes,” and then he proceeded to laugh.

I laughed, too, although it sounded more like a whimper of help. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his mother wasn’t cracking jokes and was very probably protecting the son in the least pride-damaging way she could possibly find.

“So, yeah, I’ll drive you home? Q said that he’ll be home later.”

“Yeah,” I acquiesced.

Andrew opened the door on the passenger seat before then he slipped onto the driver’s seat. Immediately, Ryder’s words once again rang inside my head.

‘Don’t let him do anything for you, not even open the goddamn car door.’

Oh, darn. The subject of my fear wasn't there, but my psyche still caught fire whenever his face popped up inside my brain. The effect that Ryder Black had on me was huge. The effect that Ryder Black had on me, especially after he interacted with me, now became alarmingly gargantuan.

Because even though the car door was open, I found myself unable to get into the car.

I stared at the empty passenger seat silently, before then I slammed the car door shut, and then opened it again.

Andrew blinked several times at what seemed like a freak-show on my part, but he didn’t complain. That’s the thing that I actually liked from Andrew. He never complained if I was being too weird, or if I needed to eat certain food on certain days, or if I talked about fictional characters from various tv-show like they were my friends. He just nodded and laughed and pretended like I was actually a good conversationalist.

Not many people had the kindness to do that to me, mind you.

“How was school?” he asked me.

“It was good! I got an A for Maths and right before the last period, I finally remembered everything about Weiss and Curie’s theory and Marcy and Corinne let me join in their conversation. I actually contributed once.” I sighed. For me to be able to contribute in a scientific debate by two of our school’s most brilliant students was indeed a feat of its own.

“Cool. The teacher didn’t call my name to answer anything today so it’s a good day for me, too.” Andrew was still smiling. “So, you remember the way to your house, right?”

I couldn’t answer to that.

“Oh shit,” he gritted his teeth. 

“Y-You remember, right? I mean, you often hang out in Quentin’s room, right?”

“Don’t worry, April!” he fumbled inside the car’s dashboard and after a while, produced an old-school map that spread wider and taller than me and Quentin’s height and width combined. I wasn’t even sure that my house was in it, or if it magically was, if our mortal eyes could spot it without going blind first. Andrew then looked at me, his huge grin was plastered on his face, although his eyes were anything but ‘not worrying’. “I’ll find your house, even if it’s the last thing I’ll do in my life!”

When those words were said by Andrew Parker, a jock that I just realized might even be stupider than me, they didn’t offer me even the tiniest bit of comfort.

-

-

-

Five hours later, I was pretty sure that I had ended up on an entirely different continent. The neighborhood looked creepy and it was starting to get dark and there was another car that had been following us for the last two hours.

Andrew’s map proved to be a waste of space and an addition of problems, as if we hadn’t gotten enough on our plate already.

One. Our phones were dead. Both were utterly and completely dead. Mine had GPS inside it but it died five minutes after the robotic lady started speaking. Andrew’s phone could only do text and call (he lost his Galaxy S3 a week earlier, so he used his old phone) but even that died on us when we attempted to call Quentin in desperation.

“I was so sure that the map told us to turn left…” Andrew groaned in frustration. “Wait. I get it, I think I get it.”

“No, no. We had to turn right before. Now we’re going to get mugged by thugs and they’ll kill us with cheap, black-market guns,” I slumped even lower on my seat, my mind full of scenarios on how I was going to die. Give Andrew another five hours and we’d be inside a jungle trying to converse with a family of tigers.

Two. There was Andrew and his tendency to read the map upside down. (Two point five, me and my tendency to mistake right and left) And three, me and my overactive imagination.

“April, I’m so sorry! I’ll get you home, I still stand by my words!” Andrew was still fumbling with the huge paper, effectively covering half of the car interior. I actually thought that it was a miracle that we were still alive by now, because I had lost count how many times I screamed God’s name because of near-collitions with other cars.

Over the course of five hours, I noticed that I had become a really religious person. And that’s probably the only good thing that came out from Andrew’s attempt to drive me home.

“Shiitt,” he cursed. He cursed daily (minutely, actually, when my brother was around), but I rarely heard him cursed around me. He really was stressed. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Maybe we can turn on the radio and listen to something,” I reached for the radio button but nothing came up. I tried several times to no avail.

Andrew looked like he was about to cry. “It’s a really old car.”

“No-no, it’s okay!” I didn’t like seeing people cry. Especially guys. Nothing wrong with guys crying, of course, but big tough guys like Andrew crying just seemed wrong.

“Is there any chance that we’ve passed the frontier?” Andrew asked breathlessly.

“Maybe, but if we did, then we’d likely get shot for crossing without permission.”

“Oh shit,” he cursed as he started driving again. Cursing didn’t help him much to ease his tension, and at this point, nothing could make the difference, really. We were still lost, and we were still at lost on how to get back home.

While Andrew was wallowing about his bad luck and a lot of other pessimistic things, I let my eyes wander around his truck. The neighborhood still looked creepy, especially since it looked like there was a huge din going on about ninety seven meter ahead of us. Around 30-40 people were circling something and after a hard inspection, I figured that there was a fight.

And a rather sadistic fight it was.

I couldn't really see it, my eyesight wasn't superhuman enough to do that, but I did realize that the fight was rather unbalanced. One guy was small, thin-framed, and although there were a few tattoos that suggested aggression, he still looked half the width of the guy he was fighting with. People were cheering so loud that I could even hear the distant sound of it. I nearly nudged Andrew to watch the fight instead of the map, because that was the only entertainment we could potentially get before one of these thugs noticed us and targeted us. But then what I saw froze any upcoming actions that I had in my mind.

The smaller guy hit the bigger guy on the jaw so hard, that the big guy was airborne for 3,867 second. When he fell, the earth around him reverberated because he was so big and heavy.

"Andrew, look at that!" I nudged him with the edge of my nails, and the small, seemingly insignificant action surprised him more than I had expected. He nearly jumped off his seat, and as he started gathering his legions of maps, his elbow sunk into the honk, blaring the screech all over the neighborhood.

All of those thugs's heads were now directed at us, including the Champion of the fight.

Even the big guy, who was lying on the floor and in the verge of losing consciousness, also turned his head towards us.

"Cheeseballs holy,"  Yoda said trough my mouth.

"Fucking hell," Andrew said in the same time.

"There's a girl inside the truck!" one of the thugs shouted so loud I could hear it, too. "She looks pretty and dumb, too."

If I had it in my bone to be angry, then I'd be angry, but unfortunately, I was so close to pissing myself that my state of pride was unaffected by his remark.

Every one of the thugs started to trudge towards us, all of them walked in an agonizingly slow motion that made each of their motions were exaggerated. Hands crackling, necks tilted and ghosts of smirks showing. I had the suspicion that they all walked slowly just to look cool and so that they could feel like those mobs in the movies.

Only the Champion stayed in his place, his head still directed towards us. Andrew started the engine, the machine roared and right at that point, all the thugs were only twenty meters before us.

"STOP!" the champion bellowed.

And then the world seemed to dissipate into frozen ice.

Even though he was small-framed and young-looking, everybody listened to him. The Champion walked a straight line to the truck, and when the lights hit his face, both Andrew's and my jaw fell when we realized who the Champion really was.

"Black Ryder," I still hadn’t escaped my state of daze.

"Show-off bastard," Andrew said at the same time.

"They're my ride," he said, his dark eyes pierced towards mine.

My heart made a leap so high I nearly died.

Ryder Black was in front of Andrew's truck, shirtless and bloody and looked almost regal as he wiped the back of his hand agaisnt his mouth. His dark eyes peered towards us, his expression alternated  between confusion and annoyance. I tried to close my eyes because looking at his six-pack and the peculiar tattoo on his side seemed inappropriate, especially when it was done right in front of him, but somehow my eyes stayed open. I couldn't even bear the thought of blinking and as the result, my eyes started to water.

I always knew that he had three small tattoos and one huge one on the side of his body, but my room didn't really offer me all the best angles so the big one was still a mystery. I never expected it to be that nerdy and cool.

Before, I wasn't even sure if I could put nerdy and cool in the same sentence.

It looked like half of his skin was ripped into shreds, and then under it, instead of ribcages, there were lots of intricately detailed Steampunk gears. All of a sudden, Ryder Black's position in my book just went up from 'seriously scary' to 'seriously cool'.

Ryder raised one of his hand, also in the same slow fashion as his fellow thugs, and when he snapped his thumb and his middle finger, everyone backed away from  us. Just like that.

One of the guys approached Ryder. Unlike the scary looking thugs, this guy looked fashionable and normal. Good looking, even, although in an unconventional sense. He looked like he was probably only a year or two older than us, although his garb and demeanor suggested that he likened himself as Don Draper of Madmen. “Dude, I’m heartbroken. I thought I’m your ride.”

“It’s ok, Alex,” Ryder said. “The girl’s my neighbor.”

“Fine,” the blonde guy huffed. “Here’s the money for winning.” He tossed Ryder a wad of cash just before he walked away from us.

Ryder waited after the last of those people were gone (they had to drag the big guy away, poor guy) before he walked even to my side of window. There was a smirk on his cut lips playing on his face when he lightly tapped the window. When I only stared at him, dumbfounded, he pressed his forehead on the window and opened his mouth, blowing air and spreading haze on the window. Using his slightly bloodied index finger, he wrote on it.

T

A

K

E

-

M

E

-

H

O

M

E

"What the hell is he saying?!" Andrew looked offended as he read the words. Ryder tilted his head to look past me, towards the blonde guy, and he cocked his head to the side. He hadn't even opened his mouth, and I just knew that he was promising pain and a lot of trouble if Andrew didn't heed to his words.

It was actually pretty commendable how he could communicate with only one look. I'd been trying to do that but always failed in each of my attempt, mostly because I didn't possess the ability to look as intense as him.

"He said, 'Take me home'," I read for Andrew because obviously he couldn't read in the dark. "Can we take him home?"

"He managed to get here, in the middle of nowhere, by his own. He should be able to get home by his own, too."

I bit on my lower lip, my gaze strayed yet again to Ryder. This time, I noticed the tattoo on his left part of chest. A bird. It looked innocent, that bird, unlike the skull on his bicep.

I really-really wanted to look closer to the bird and the Steampunk gears. Even if it meant I had to sit close to Ryder Black.

"Maybe he knows the way to my house," I offered to Andrew. "After all, we're neighbors."

Andrew groaned again, his fingers rapped on the steer voraciously. After a while, he gestured to Ryder to come in. Ryder opened the car door, but instead of shuffling in, he looked straight to me. "Get out first, Kitten. I want to be in the middle."

His voice was dripping with so much authority that I couldn't help but jumped off the truck.

"Kitten!? Really?!" Andrew's mouth was far from being shut.

"Yeah, that was what I said, too," I said, nodding vigorously.

There was an air of easy grace with the way Ryder tilted his head towards Andrew. He didn't even fully tilt it, just slightly. "Got a problem with that?”

"Good thing you just saved us from your thug people," Andrew said through his gritted teeth. "Or else I'll punch your teeth off."

"I wouldn't worry about that, you jocks never fight alone." Ryder said as he put both of his hands under his neck and rested his head. "Come get in, Kitten."

As I stepped one foot inside the truck, the smell of Ryder's sweat attacked my nostrils. It wasn't just the smell of the combination of 30 men's sweat and blood, it was also the smell of fights and victory and masculinity.

Andrew pinched the edge of his nose. "You stink."

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Ta-da. :) Wow, it's actually done. It's 3AM now, and I feel sooo tired, but this story's keep calling for me so I get out from the bed and write.

Reference of Ryder's steampunk gear tattoo on the side. :) 

Thank you everyone for reading. Really. I'm so sorry I can't reply to everyone's comments, but I'm just too tired now, and I've been busy moving out from the country. I'll try to reply as much as I can tomorrow.

As of now, please enjoy the story and don't forget to show the love <3

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